Design Reliability Engineer

• ◆Technical Leadership : Lead the technical reviews that shape the future of artificial-gravity space habitats—providing clear, decisive guidance during milestone design reviews and major risk gates.
• ◆Oversee qualification and test completeness for flight systems, ensuring our test campaigns are robust, disciplined, and aligned with human-rated reliability.
• ◆Bring deep engineering intuition to test campaigns, identifying risks early and helping teams converge on safe, resilient solutions.
• ◆Evaluate complex design and operational changes, safeguarding technical integrity as the system evolves.
• ◆Design Excellence : Serve as the architect and guardian of Vast’s engineering standards, design guides, and review frameworks—tools that enable fast, confident decision-making across the company.
• ◆Make engineering best practices accessible and actionable, especially for engineers moving rapidly under ambitious program timelines.
• ◆Support and elevate engineering teams across the organization by bringing broad experience in design, build cycles, integration, and test.
• ◆Turn organizational knowledge into lasting guidance by capturing lessons learned and strengthening future standards.
• ◆Process Ownership : Build and steward the processes that ensure engineering rigor at scale—ensuring designs meet standards, reviews are comprehensive, and changes are consistently implemented.
• ◆Own and continuously refine design review templates, reliability checklists, and internal design guides.
• ◆Track design maturity and compliance across the station and vehicle architecture, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
• ◆Build tools, frameworks, and automation that empower engineers to explore design trade-offs and risks with clarity and speed.
• ◆Cross-Functional Influence : Work across all facets of the engineering organization to improve reliability.
• ◆Partner with configuration and change management so that every update to flight hardware is intentional, reviewed, and fully understood.
• ◆Partner with the internal software team to ensure system data, configuration details, and design decisions are well organized and accessible.

• ✓Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related field.
• ✓5+ years of experience in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability-focused development.
• ✓Demonstrated experience conducting design reviews, qualification reviews, or major change assessments.
• ✓Strong communicator and collaborative leader with high emotional intelligence, diplomacy, and the ability to influence at all levels.
• ✓Resilient, curious, and committed to continuous learning in fast-paced or high-pressure environments.

• ✓Experience in Responsible Engineering, Systems Engineering, Office of the Chief Engineer, or Reliability Engineering roles on complex aerospace systems.
• ✓Hands-on experience designing, assembling, integrating, or testing hardware.
• ✓Background with spacecraft, aircraft, launch vehicles, or other mission- or safety-critical systems.
• ✓Familiarity with fracture control, reliability methodologies, or human-rated hardware standards.
• ✓Experience creating engineering standards, review templates, or technical guidance frameworks.
• ✓Strong scripting and data analysis skills (Python, MATLAB, Excel) and familiarity with visualization tools (e.g., Tableau).
• ✓Knowledge of manufacturing processes, materials selection, and hardware qualification pathways.
• ✓Strong systems-level intuition and the ability to anticipate and articulate risks early.

Additional

• ✓Willingness to work overtime, or weekends to support critical mission milestones.

Pay Range: California

$137,000 — $195,000 USD